Meme

OK, so Grumpy Granny tagged me in a meme -- I haven't done one of these in about five years, but it's a relatively short one, so here we go.

Rules: Link to the person that tagged you, post the rules on your blog, share six non-important things/habits/quirks about yourself, tag six more bloggers at the end, and then leave them comments so they know they've been tagged.

1) I despise apples, and especially apple juice. I'm not a picky eater, as a rule, but I just never could learn to like that taste.

2) Most of the time I feel more comfortable around children, especially those under the age of 12 or so, than I do around adults.

3) I was a 'spontaneous reader', just before age three. My very pregnant mother purposely skipped a sentence in a (brand new, from the library) book she was reading to me, and I calmly looked up and said, "That's not what it says." When she, incredulous, challenged me, I took the book from her hands and read her the rest of it -- and haven't stopped to this day. (When my sister was born and nobody wanted to listen to the three-year-old read anymore, I spent hours recording myself on blank cassettes in my kiddie tape player. :))

4) This has had to relax somewhat since living with Aphrodite, but when left to my own devices, I am obsessively neat -- clean up after myself after every meal, keep everything in the house organized, etc. That's my mother rubbing off on me. *wince*

5) It takes me forever to type a blog post or an email -- or anything, really -- because I read over everything dozens of times to make sure it sounds the best it possibly can.

6) Aside from Grey's Anatomy, Brothers and Sisters, NFL football, and the occasional episode of Extreme Makeover Home Edition, I genuinely hate TV. I never have it on when I'm home alone.

OK -- I'm tagging ~k at Inside Wants Out, but everyone else has already been tagged by someone else... so I'm going to be lame. :)

P.S. My birthday was yesterday -- I came home to a treasure hunt, tacos (my favorite meal), and a homemade cake -- so all the buildup to that is part of the reason I haven't been posting as frequently. There's another introspective-type post coming, don't worry.

Life Update

Just a bit of a Life Update... I know they're not as interesting to the general population as the posts everyone can relate to, but I post them anyway because my blog has always served as a bit of a personal journal to me -- I love going back years later and reading about what I was doing (often shaking my head and muttering, 'Wow, if I had only known how that was going to turn out...").

Anyway, so, major life areas:

WORK. My last day at my old job is Tuesday, my birthday is Wednesday, and I start my new job on Thursday. I am STOKED -- my old job is driving me nuts. I literally almost cried yesterday when they sent me on a call at 4:45pm (when I'm supposed to get off at 6).

SCHOOL. My second semester of prerequisite courses is going okay so far, though I loathe my anatomy professor (an annoyingly perky micromanager) and also hate the fact that my genetics lab is in the evenings, lasting until 10pm (I'd much rather be curled up on the couch watching TV with Aphrodite). On the flip side, I got perfect scores on my first two chemistry quizzes, which is a bone fide miracle (cue angel music). This is a complete and total switcheroo from last semester (when I struggled through chemistry, barely scraping a B, and breezed through anatomy with a 98 average and a fabulous professor), but I can handle it.

SPORTS. I'm training for a 15k (9.3mi) in March, one I've done for the past two years and really love. I'm still not exercising nearly as much as I was during my undergrad (when I was swimming 15 hours a week, plus biking and lifting weights), but then again, I'll probably never hit that peak again. I'm doing a lot better than last semester, anyway -- running 3-4 times a week, 3-5 miles each time. I'd love to finish the race in an hour and a half this year, but I won't hold my breath --an hour and 45 minutes is probably a more reasonable goal. Oh, and also, I've decided to enter the lottery for the New York City Marathon, which is held in November. According to the internet, the odds are about 30-40% of getting selected, which isn't that bad, but I'll keep my eye on a few other races held around the same time (don't want to train for six months and then never run the darn thing).

GIRLFRIEND. Aphrodite is doing okay, not great. She'll be teaching a course at her alma mater this summer, and after that (hopefully!) back at school herself for a master's in international studies, but she's working retail in the meantime and it's really wearing on her. She's the type of person who needs a community around her, familiar faces that care about her, and she sort of lost that when she left school in May and all her friends scattered to the four winds. Add to that her sensitive nature and the fact that she gets treated horribly by a good percentage of those who come into her store, and you've got one unhappy girlfriend. We're counting the days until June.

Thus concludes the Saturday Life Update... enjoy your weekend, everyone!

Continued...

Okay, so I have a bit of an addendum to that last post. (Thanks to Jen and LD for the comments; you guys really made me feel better, like maybe I don't sound that crazy!) See, I've been reading a little about Reiki, healing, and similar experiences on the Internet, and that made me remember some of the things that happened in the early weeks of Aphrodite's and my relationship. They've sort of tapered off lately (is that normal? anyone know?) but a lot of really weird things happened to us in the beginning.

1) Last December (2006), one month after we got together, Christmas break rolled around. Not only did I have to go home and leave Aphrodite (since my parents didn't know about us), but on the first day of my vacation, I had to go with my family to Alabama for a cousin's wedding. Aphrodite had a huge final that day for one of her accounting classes, and was spending the day studying in our apartment, alone.

I felt fine for most of the morning, as we started our journey, but around ten -- the time Aphrodite usually wakes up -- I started to feel sick, nauseous and headachy. That was unusual for me; I'm a competitive athlete and rarely get sick. The symptoms continued all day, during our travels and arrival at the hotel. I refused all food and went straight to bed -- but then couldn't sleep. I finally dropped off for about a half hour, then was awakened by my mother to get dressed for the ceremony. I was literally feeling too weak to move, and when my dad made me stand in front of him so he could pin up a fold of my dress, the room started to go black in front of me and I had to grab for a chair and sit down. This was completely out of character for me; I've never passed out in my life.

Mom put a cold washcloth on my face and neck, forced me to eat some crackers and put my feet up, and made me sit outside in the breeze. I took deep breaths, thought about Aphrodite's arms around me and how she'd hold me if she were there, and eventually started to feel just barely good enough to go to the ceremony. We got there just in time. I didn't feel well, but at least I wasn't passing out -- and I did gradually feel better and better as the evening rolled on.

Finally, at the reception, Aphrodite called, exhausted but relieved -- she'd just finished her three-hour final. That was when things started falling into place for me. I asked how her day had gone, and she launched into telling me about her hours of uncontrollable tears, panic attacks, fears about the exam, missing me, etc. "I knew it was going to be hard, but I still wouldn't normally get so upset over trying to study for an exam -- but I was literally on the floor bawling my eyes out," she said.

Ding ding ding! I have no idea whether her emotions caused my physical symptoms or the other way around, but it seems clear that they were related -- I never get sick, and she never panics to that degree over exams, and yet the time frames matched up. I got worse and worse until around the time she started taking her test, then felt gradually better as she progressed farther through it, and felt one hundred percent fine once it was over and she was on the phone with me -- and her emotions followed the same map. We were both a little awed by the strength of our connection -- and dismayed that we had two weeks to go before we'd be together again.

2) Here's a second example. Aphrodite's mother is an alcoholic, and although she's learned how to accept her and deal with her now that she's older, one of her old professors (I'll call her Gaia -- 'Mother Earth') has filled that 'Mom' role for her in a lot of ways. She treats Aphrodite like a third child, and the two of them go through the same mother-daughter ups and downs ("she doesn't understand me!") as any pair. Last January, about two months into our relationship, Aphrodite was vacillating over whether or not to tell Gaia about us. She was 'almost positive' she would be perfectly okay with it; she was just incredibly nervous to actually say the words. Aphrodite had dated the same man for four years while at college, even getting engaged to him, and she wasn't sure how Gaia would react to such an about-face.

So one day back then, Aphrodite was going to see Gaia, who lived 30 miles away from us at the time (we hadn't moved to our one-bedroom yet). She hadn't reached a decision on whether or not to try to broach The Subject, planning to just 'take it as it came' and see what kind of mood she was in. I was sitting at home, totally absorbed in my Mayan hieroglyph homework, my mind one hundred percent focused on the task at hand -- when I suddenly slapped my pencil down and sat straight up in my chair. It felt like someone had banged me on top of the head. "Oh my God," I said out loud, "she's telling her right now!"

Unable to concentrate, I got up and paced around the apartment, picking things up and putting them down, grabbing the phone and then making myself drop it, telling myself that I didn't want to interrupt such an important moment. I was in agony, but also absolute certainty. Nothing like this had ever happened to me before -- me, the so-called cynic, skeptic, atheist, what-have-you -- but I knew, absolutely knew that I was right.

Ten minutes later, I got a three-word text message, undoubtedly an opportunity snatched while Gaia's back was momentarily turned: 'she knows omg'.

Over the next 20-30 minutes (as the conversation progressed...) I felt the nervousness begin to ebb, but still couldn't focus -- until Aphrodite called me to give me all the details and say that Gaia had been absolutely wonderful, that she wanted to get to know me better, that it couldn't have gone more perfectly, etc.

These are just two of the larger experiences in a whole series of shared connections that happened over those first few months. But what I want to know is, why have they stopped? Is it because our lives have gotten so much busier (we're both working) and we don't have as much time to focus on each other? Or because the 'newness' has worn off somehow? Or is there another explanation?

Hey, another little tidbit just crossed my mind too, in light of my new job: for as long as I can remember, children have always been drawn to me (and I to them). I sit down somewhere and they just come to me. If I'm in a room with a child for any length of time, s/he almost always comes over to me and tries to make contact somehow (we often end up playing). Is there something special about kids? Are they more 'open' somehow, can sense energy more readily or something? Or is it just coincidence?

Thanks in advance for any ideas, suggestions, sympathies, shared experiences, or whatever you have to offer. This is all really new for me, and I'm eager to learn from anyone who's been there!

Feeling Different

Okay. I've been struggling with this post for almost two hours now, and I simply can't get it right. The images and analogies aren't flowing the way they usually do, and I think it's just because this topic is such a new area for me that I don't know how to express it as fully as I want to. So I'm just going to say it, as plainly as I can, and maybe some of your comments will help me to write a second post which follows up on this.

So I've read several accounts lately which mention that many gays and lesbians are more 'sensitive' than the general population (to the moods and thoughts of others, et cetera), and that this ability may contribute to the typical 'feeling different', especially when younger.

This is definitely true in Aphrodite's case. She is the most 'emotionally intelligent' person I've ever met. In everyday life, she genuinely cares about every single person she meets, can sense people's moods, and knows how to navigate a tricky conversation without raising hackles -- all wonderful life skills, and some of the things that draw people to her so readily. On another level, though, she also finds it almost instinctive to 'tap into' a source outside herself. She listens to the Universe, as it were, almost without effort. Sometimes, it's as though she has an extra antenna -- she senses things that others don't pick up, predicts certain things before they happen, 'feels' her place in the universe in a way that most people never even think about. As a child, she was always the one to act beyond her emotional years (holding an injured baby squirrel for hours until he died, greeting her kindergarten teacher every single morning "because I thought she might want to have someone tell her good morning"), and as an adult, she still amazes me every day (buying a Starbucks muffin for the homeless man on the street, going far out of her way to corner, catch, and find a home for an abandoned 10-week-old kitten, etc.).

On the face of it, I am her antithesis. I was raised an atheist and have never really put much faith in the idea of there being anything beyond this physical existence. I wasn't a particularly sensitive child (although I think that was more conditioned than instinctive, since every time I got emotional about something that my mother didn't think warranted such a reaction, she would tell me I was being hypersensitive and that I needed to calm down. In time, I learned not to react externally.)

However, since meeting Aphrodite, I'm realizing that this is more the result of what was forced upon me than a result of what I really feel. Spirituality was never discussed in my house -- literally, never -- and most of my religious experiences ('friends' attempting to convert me, etc.) were negative. But I'm slowly realizing -- mostly due to Aphrodite's influence -- that what I thought I believed isn't really what I feel. (Side note: I'm not discussing this with any particular religion or belief system in mind at all -- just offering up the (to me) new idea that maybe there is something beyond our physical bodies, whether that's energy between people, beams of light from a universal source, or something entirely different.)

I could go on about this for pages and pages, but I'm going to focus on one specific aspect here: touch.

I was never touched much as a child beyond the perfunctory bedtime hug and kiss, and yet I'm realizing now that touch is actually my strongest 'love language', that is, I feel love most strongly when someone is holding me or stroking me. Words are nice, but physicality, to me, speaks louder. I have extremely sensitive skin (in the old-fashioned sense: for example, I don't like running the pads of my fingers over textured surfaces like carpet or sandpaper, and I'm incredibly ticklish), and I'm not sure whether that is a byproduct of not being touched, an occupational hazard of loving physical contact, or simply a coincidence. But recently, I've started to realize that I may have the ability to heal. I don't mean lay hands on you and cure your cancer -- but I seem to be able to do something that others can't.

Aphrodite's gifts don't come without a price: she carries a lot of stress at different points in her body, and often gets painful twinges in her upper left chest and shoulder. (Don't worry, heart problems have been ruled out.) The other night, when she said she hurt, I made her lie down on the sofa, rubbed my hands together until I felt them tingle, then laid my right hand over the affected area and my left on Aphrodite's forehead. (I felt strongly that I needed both hands on her, not just one, and the left hand just seemed to naturally gravitate to that spot.) I felt them gradually get warmer and tingle, and had the impression of blue-green light flowing in a circle from my left hand (on her forehead) through her body and back to my other hand (over the painful area). We sat that way for who knows how long. It felt very peaceful and comfortable, like time had stopped, like nothing else was important.

I eventually removed one of my hands to grab the remote and stop the annoying DVD menu music -- and then I couldn't get the sensation back. I rubbed my hands together again, and they didn't tingle. I laid them on her body, and they didn't get warm. Whatever had been happening, I couldn't get it back. I stood up, then realized I had a slight headache and felt far more tired than I had before we'd started. Aphrodite, on the other hand, said she felt much better and practically bounced up off the sofa.

I'm sure there are a ton of explanations for this -- it's not exactly a miracle cure, after all. All I can say is that it felt significant, which is why I'm writing about it. I did something similar when she had gallstones -- one hand on her front and one on her back, which she said felt really good -- but that obviously didn't help in the long term. (On the other hand, we didn't know she had gallstones then, and the pain was referred to her left side, so I wasn't exactly touching the right spot.) Anyway, Aphrodite says her grandmother can do something similar (she called it "healing hands"), but that she's the only one she knows who can do that.

Anyway, okay, now that you all think I'm completely crazy, I'll shut up. But if any of you have similar 'sensitive' experiences, please do share and let me know I'm not all alone out here! :)

Quickie: I GOT A JOB!!!

I don't think I've mentioned this on this site yet, but my ultimate career goal is to be a pediatric PA (Physician's Assistant). For those who don't know, PAs can do almost anything doctors can -- exams, prescriptions, diagnoses -- and in any area (surgery, OB-GYN, emergency medicine, etc.), but the education is much shorter (just two years). I've got to have a certain amount of experience (plus prerequisite courses) before I can apply to any programs, so I've been working as an EMT for a convalescent company for the past six months, but it's far from being my ideal job. I want to work with children, not old people -- and I want to practice medicine, not drive a van and maybe occasionally inflate a blood pressure cuff. Not only that, but my job's description falls very close to the line of plain old 'medical transporter' -- which many university websites say does NOT count for hours of experience toward PA school. So I've been applying to other jobs, almost ever since I got my current one. I got follow-ups from blood labs, family practices, insurance billing personnel, one OB-GYN place, a few chiropractors, and countless others that weren't the right fit. But finally, finally, finally, my search has paid off.

Today, I was offered a position as a medical assistant in a pediatric practice. MY IDEAL JOB.

I'll be rooming patients, taking their heights and weights, doing blood draws, immunizations, nebulizer treatments, throat cultures, urine dips, and assisting with other random things like stitches, or whatever the supervising physician needs. The office manager told me straight out that I'd be doing essentially everything the nurses do -- plus I'll get $13/hour and 80% benefits (as opposed to the $11.50 and 50% that I get now). And it's with KIDS. And it's the kind of experience I WANT and NEED in order to get to where I'm going. The only drawback is that the practice is 30 miles from our apartment -- but even that, I can learn to live with. I've got one more interview Wednesday morning (for a job I don't think I'm going to want, but feel like I should go through the motions for), after which I can formally accept the position.

Yes -- this was a good, good day.

Southern Barbie Meets a Lesbian

For the most part, all of my friends and coworkers who know I'm gay have been great, ranging from 'uninterested' to 'thrilled' on the supportive scale (one of my closest friends, a lesbian herself, shrieked "I knew it!" at the top of her lungs, wanted every single detail, and insisted that she'd had to constantly defend me as straight to her friends). If any of my coworkers are uncomfortable with it -- which is a distinct possibility, since the place I'm working now is relatively 'backwoods' with a lot of hardcore Republicans -- they've kept it to themselves. The two coworkers with whom I have gotten into in-depth conversations on the subject were casual, curious, and funny. And last month, Aphrodite came to our company's Christmas party with me, and everyone liked her a lot and treated her completely normally.

Except.

There is one woman I work with -- late 40s, long blond hair, nice body, Southern accent, looks rather like an aging Barbie -- who makes me feel, for lack of a beter analogy, as though I'm a bug under a microscope being poked with a stick. I believe that she is genuinely interested in my relationship on some level, and I don't really mind talking to her about Aphrodite or about lesbian relationships in general, but the way she goes about asking questions sets my teeth on edge. There's no hint of malice in anything she says -- but the general vibe just makes me so uncomfortable. It's hard to explain. I don't feel as though I can even talk to Aphrodite on the phone when she's around, even about everyday things, because I feel like she's hanging on my every word.

When I casually mentioned "my girlfriend" for the first time, in the context of a conversation about something entirely different, one of the first things out of Barbie's mouth was, "Oh, it doesn't matter to me. At my other job, there are these two guys who are homosexual and we just make fun of them all the time, and they do the same thing to us. Nobody cares that they're queer."

((I should interject here that I don't like to be described as 'queer' by straight people. I know there are some gays and lesbians who prefer to identify as 'queer' over any other term, and that's fine -- I don't have a problem with the word itself -- but for some reason it bothers me when straight people use it, maybe because it feels like they're telling me I'm 'queer' in the old sense of the word -- strange, odd, weird in some way. The closest I can come to an analogy is that nowadays, black people can call one another 'nigger' and it's perfectly okay, but if a white person tries it, he or she is liable to get jumped in a dark alley. I'm not sure if that makes sense to anyone else -- but the point is, she put my hackles up right from the start. I'm surprised I didn't physically flinch.))

She rambled on about her daughter and how she would react if her daughter came out as a lesbian. "That doesn't mean I'd want to watch her shove her tongue down her girlfriend's throat, but I wouldn't love her any less."
"Well, most people don't want to watch heterosexuals stick their tongues down each other's throats in public either," I pointed out dryly.

A few minutes later, she began to qualify, "Now, I don't want to pry... I don't want to make you uncomfortable... I'm just curious..." blah blah ramble ramble." I braced myself, fully expecting a question about my sexual habits, wondering how to respond.

Five minutes later, when she finally managed to get to the point, what I got was, "Do gay and lesbian couples keep their finances separate or put everything together?"

I blinked. "Um. Well. Aphrodite and I keep everything separate, at least for now, but I know other couples who have joint accounts, because they have houses or children or whatever and it just makes sense. I mean, it's just like with heterosexual couples -- just personal preference."

"Oh." Silence descended.

...What was she expecting me to say?

At the Christmas party a few weeks later, she brought her 22-year-old daughter along. Our table was having a perfectly nice conversation about the music business, among other things, until Barbie managed to work the conversation around to what she was clearly dying to hear about: Aphrodite and me. Her daughter took the conversational reins from her after a few minutes and asked us both, "Did you always know? I mean, that you were... you know. Did you always know?"

(In the car, Aphrodite exploded, "She's known me for ten minutes! It's not that I mind talking about it -- but there is a polite, classy way to ask things like that. Honestly!")

After we summarized our 'histories' in as few words as possible, Barbie got into a conversation with Aphrodite about something else, and her daughter started insisting to me that Aphrodite and I should hang out with her and her friends sometime. "Yeah, we should all totally go out and do something together." And then, all wide blue eyes and blond innocence, she asked me, "You do hang out with normal people, right?"

What? What?

I laughed. I couldn't help it. Then I affected my own sweet innocence (blond and blue-eyed though I am not), looked at her, let a touch of fake hurt creep into my own wide eyes, and asked, "You mean we're not normal people?"

She backtracked so fast I'm surprised she didn't fall out of her chair. "No! No, that's not what I meant at all. I just... you know..." and on and on she stumbled. I kept a pleasant smile on my face, caught between wild laughter and the list of snotty comebacks that kept popping up in my mind ("So where did you get the Post-It on your forehead that said 'normal'?") Et cetera. Somehow, the party ended, and Aphrodite and I had quite a few good laughs in the car on the way home.

I haven't worked with Barbie much since then, but recently, we got a new employee, a girl just a few years older than me, with enough personality for three people. I'll call her Marcia. She identifies as bisexual (of the 'happily married to a man, but likes to fuck women occasionally' variety), and we've had some great conversations, ranging from the serious to the hilarious. In the past two weeks, she and I have worked together several times, with great enjoyment -- and, for completely unrelated reasons, she despises Barbie with a passion that transcends hellfire. Yesterday, she told me that she'd worked with Barbie the previous day, and that she (Marcia) had mentioned to her how much she enjoyed working with me. According to her, Barbie (who didn't know that Marcia knew anything about my personal life) responded, "Oh, yeah, I like working with Athena. She's pretty quiet, because of the lifestyle she leads, but if you ask her, she's really quite open about it."

Um, what?

My response: "Yeah, damn, it really sucks how having sex with women affects your vocal cords. All that screaming, you know."

Aphrodite's response, via cell phone amid gales of laughter: "So what you're saying is, you're discreet and that bothers her." As I cracked up, she continued, "Honestly, it's like they think we're a different species, like we all live in pink houses and sleep in hammocks."

Marcia's actual, sweet response: "Well, Barbie, seeing as how I've already 'been there' myself, I don't think I'd really have any questions for her."

How much would I have paid to be a fly on the wall during that conversation?!

Have any of you ever experienced a person like that -- not openly malicious, and seemingly interested and supportive, but you just feel that something is way, way wrong? I've experienced the two extremes -- verbal abuse and warm support -- but never felt this foggy middle ground until now. In a way, it's more uncomfortable than the slurs, because you don't know exactly where you stand.

Anyone know what I'm talking about?

November 18, 2006: A Day That Will Live in Infamy

"OK, traffic moving now, be there soon," I texted Aphrodite as the rows of cars around me began to inch forward. I had just left an interview, and was supposed to be meeting her for dinner at a popular pizza place. This was part of a new, ongoing pattern, and one that I liked. I hadn't had a true, close friend since leaving my undergraduate institution nearly six months earlier, and Aphrodite -- my randomly-matched grad school roommate -- was rapidly turning into my favorite person in the world.

On Halloween night, we had made slice-n-bake cookies, drunk red wine (her) and Smirnoff (me), ridden a teeter-totter, and played football at midnight -- a night of high-school type fun, something that had been missing from my life for far too long. The next night, we'd gone to a popular, pricey rooftop restaurant, just the two of us, then come home, lit candles, poured wine, and played Name That Tune with our iPods. The following weekend, we'd gone to dinner at one of Aphrodite's favorite places, then gone to a student-produced play at her alma mater... and as the lights went down, I, the so-called straight girl, had a momentary flash of wanting to pin her against the wall and press my body into her. (Startled, I pushed the unprecedented thought from my mind and refused to think about it again.) Then, the next night, we'd watched the Wizard of Oz, held hands, and nearly, oh so nearly, kissed. To this day, I can see her head resting on my shoulder and mentally kick myself for not making a move.

This didn't even include the two weeks she'd spent in China as part of a school trip the previous month, before the two of us had gotten close -- when I had twice gone and stood in her bedroom, closed my eyes, and inhaled the familiar, comforting scent: vanilla candles intermingled with something all her own. I missed her more deeply than I could remember missing anyone -- a lot more than I should have, as merely her roommate. I couldn't understand why I should feel that way, why I should have wanted to leap into her arms when she reappeared on our doorstep with her suitcase. Again, I dismissed it. I was unable to justify it -- so I simply blocked it out. I was doing that a lot with Aphrodite in those days, but because I'd spent so many years doing so (with my camp counselors, my teachers, certain friends...), it didn't seem especially odd to me.

But I wasn't thinking about any of that as I dashed through the doors of the restaurant, nearly bowling over several unsuspecting patrons. I hastily apologized as my head practically spun in circles, looking for her. "Look right, look right," said Aphrodite through the cell phone, laughing. I looked right -- and there she was. Hair tumbling over her shoulders, pina colada half-finished in front of her, cell phone held to her ear, a certain smile gracing her face that I would soon come to realize she didn't bestow on just anyone. I grinned widely, and hurried over to join her.

Dinner went by in a haze of laughter and conversation, and before I knew it, our separate cars were following each other home to watch the Hurricane Katrina fundraising special with Robin Williams and Whoopi Goldberg that Aphrodite had been looking forward to all week. I checked my email and killed time in my room, not wanting to seem 'weird' by sticking to her like glue. Finally, I heard, "Are you gonna watch this with me, or what?" I walked across the living room into Aphrodite's room, and saw her duvet and pillows lying on the floor, facing her TV. She had lit a couple of candles and propped herself up against the bed, holding a glass of red wine, and was rapidly flipping through channels. She looked up, saw me, smiled, and patted the blanket next to her. I snuggled in beside her, being careful not to touch her.

The show was hilarious, but after the first half hour or so, Aphrodite said to me, for about the fourth time, "Oh, 'Thena, you are in so much trouble." She said that to me every time she drank red wine, and would never tell me why.
"Why am I in trouble?" I asked yet again.
"You just are," she sighed, smiling.
To this day, I have no idea what made me act -- but I sat up, turned, swung my leg over her, and straddled her hips, raising my eyebrows in a playful challenge and staring straight into her eyes. "Why am I in trouble?" I think the subliminal knowledge that she was attracted to me had suddenly risen to a slightly higher level of consciousness, just below the point where I could fully grasp it, and that indefinable certainty gave me courage.

She was utterly speechless, caught between shock and amusement (and, though I didn't really think about it at the time, arousal -- she'd been in love with me for a month, and here I was sitting on top of her!). Her eyes were wide, caught between laughter and alarm. I don't remember her reply, but I know I leaned forward, pinned her wrists gently but firmly to the floor, and said, "You keep telling me I'm in trouble. I'm not getting off you until you tell me why." I knew, knew what was going on -- or thought I did -- but I refused to get her out of this trap by asking, because there was no way in hell I was going to say it first. With the same hazy certainty as before, I knew that I had some sort of power over her, and that she would tell me, even if I had to wait her out.

Over the next 45 minutes, we danced around the truth we both knew. "You're gonna hate me," she kept insisting, almost tearfully. I assured her over and over that I wouldn't, and even tried to take a hard line at one point, "Nothing could ever change the way I feel about you--" feeling as though I were giving the game away with that statement -- "and to tell you the truth, I'm a little insulted that you'd think something could."
"No, oh, no, please don't be insulted," she cried, stricken, anguished. I abandoned that tactic and returned to gentle coaxing.

"How many words does it have?" I asked finally, expecting -- hoping -- to hear 'three'. Instead, she thought for a second and said, "Nine."
Hmm -- maybe I'm wrong, I thought uncertainly. "What's the first word?"
"'You,'" she said in a small voice.
"Okay, what's the second word?" I kept pushing, trying to stay matter-of-fact. She could not clam up on me now!
"'Make.'"
"Third word?"
"Um... it has two letters..."

And so it went, me coaxing the words out of her bit by bit, until I had assembled the message, "You make me feel something I feel I shouldn't." I had no idea what to do next, and it was obvious that Aphrodite was getting pretty uncomfortable with me pinning her the way I was.
"Could you--?" she asked, pausing and wincing as she flexed her wrists.
I relented. "I'll get off you, but you still have to tell me," I said, sliding off to lie on my right side, next to her, closer than before.
There was a long silence, so long that I almost broke it with words, then held my tongue. Two or three full minutes must have passed before she said, in a voice so low it was barely more than a breath, "I love you."

It happened so suddenly that I literally didn't think I'd heard her right.
Holy shit -- what now?! my mind shrieked.
Well, are you really gonna tell her 'NO'???
HELL NO!!!
She was facing me on the floor, terrified of my reaction. I could find no words, but didn't seem to need them. I smiled at her, holding her gaze, and reached my left arm up and over her body to hold her. Even though I couldn't find words -- I couldn't even begin to name the emotions and feelings tumbling through me just then -- I wanted her to know that she needn't be afraid, that everything was okay, better than okay, that she'd done the right thing in telling me.

Suddenly, our faces were so close together that I knew it couldn't end any other way but with a kiss. In a way, it was a huge relief. Nobody gets this close to someone unless they want to kiss them, I reasoned, and felt the weight of uncertainty lift from my shoulders. I had known what was happening -- on every level, apparently, except that last level of uncertainty, the one where you raise your hand to give what you know in your gut is the correct answer, and yet you're still afraid that the teacher might shake her head. Aphrodite's face being so close, even before she touched me, was the affirmation I'd been seeking.

Our eyes closed, and we drew ever closer. My nose rubbed hers; I felt the faint puff of her breath on my lips. I had no idea where I was, even who I was. Everything was magnified, and at the same time, nothing at all existed except this about-to-be kiss. I felt like every molecule of my body was funneled into my lips, like every neuron was awaiting the moment when our mouths would finally make contact. (Only afterward, analyzing my previous relationships, girl-crushes and indescribable feelings, did I realize that no man's kiss had ever even come close to making the world fall away.)

The no-man's-land of 'almost', of nose-rubbings and sighs and bated breath, might have taken five seconds or three minutes. I honestly have no idea. Nor do I know which of us made that final fatal chin lift. I remember a final, adrenaline-charged, almost panicky thought - what's she going to feel like?!

And then the world fell silent.

Amazingly, my first reaction was that her lips felt so damn familiar. Wildly, my mind screamed, oh no, you don't feel anything, it's like kissing your sister, what now?! Exactly one microsecond later, I realized that that wasn't it at all. Quite simply, Aphrodite was kissing me the way I had always wanted to be kissed, body, mind, heart, and soul, and never known it. Gently, sensually, perfectly, asking for nothing more than this. And I was kissing her back. Judging by her reactions -- not too badly, either.

We kissed there on her bedroom floor -- and then, eventually, in her bed -- for five hours. The first time I felt the faint brush of her tongue, I thought I would melt. When she gently climbed on top of me and pressed her body to mine, every inch of me caught fire. Hands didn't roam (that came the next day), no clothes came off (that came the next week) -- we simply made out, with techniques ranging from gentle and loving to 'horny seventh graders'. I eventually went to my room (only because our third roommate came home and interrupted things...) and we slept about six hours, then woke up and kissed in my bed for eight more hours the next day. We didn't eat, didn't sleep, didn't even remember that we had jobs or classes. We were each other's whole world.

Though we slept together nearly every night, we didn't make love until two full weeks later. I had never moved that slowly with a partner. I had always felt like I was looking for something, some closeness, some unnameable sensation -- something I might find if I pushed on just a little more, let this guy or that guy go just a little farther. Needless to say, it never worked. But then again, I'd never been with a woman. In Aphrodite, I found everything -- everything precious, everything I never knew I wanted or needed. She simply knew me, fit me -- perfectly, through and through. Simply put -- she was, and is, my home.

She told me later that she thought we'd kiss for a minute, and that then I'd pull away and say "I can't do this." Or that I'd only want her for the occasional drunken makeout session until the end of the school year, and then we'd go our separate ways. But here we are fourteen months later, in a one-bedroom apartment, more in love than ever. That may sound overly sappy, but I can't lie -- it's how things happened.

She is the only woman I've ever been with, and I realize now that all those poets and authors I always thought were exaggerating -- 'you just know', 'nothing else matters', 'the world spins' -- were actually telling the truth all along. I always thought I knew myself really well, that I was level-headed, down-to-earth, successful, and just picky when it came to men. At the risk of sounding cliche, Aphrodite showed me who I am (not just sexually, either -- there'll be another post or two coming about all that self-discovery) and she's the one who will show me who I'm supposed to be as I grow older, the one I'll walk hand in hand with down the red carpet of this life. It's an amazing feeling.

I can't wait to see what's ahead.

In Case You Didn't Know - Keira Knightley Is Incredible.

For those who haven't heard about the new movie Atonement, it's finally been released in more USA theaters (it was only in the major cities at first). I saw it last night, and it took my breath away. I read the book a couple of weeks ago and couldn't put it down, and I'd really been looking forward to seeing it in the theater. (Keira Knightley having sex? Hell, I'll pay $7.50 every day of the week to see that...)

I won't give away too many details for those of you who have yet to see (or read) it, but there is one particular moment where Cecelia (Keira Knightley's character) opens the door to Robbie (James McAvoy) after he's sent her a letter that, ahem, ought not to have been sent. (If there is a more famous line in all of literature containing the word 'cunt' than this one, I've certainly never heard it.) It's a quick, thirty-second encounter, not really part of the main backbone of the film, but it brought out Keira's natural ability to such a degree that my jaw literally dropped. I've always had a bit of an obsession with her (and I didn't realize my sexual preferences until 14 months ago?!), but this is the first time I consciously noticed her pull something off that only a very select few actresses could have done.

In the scene, Robbie/James has arrived for dinner with Cecelia/Keira's family and is embarrassed (quite understandably), certain that he has no chance with her anymore after sending the 'wrong' version of his letter - easy enough for a decent actor to play. Cecelia/Keira, on the other hand, has to make us see that she feels she ought to be offended or shocked, but isn't really - combined with the things that she is feeling (surprise, embarrassment, slight amusement, and a certain amount of excitement and wanting). Difficult, to say the least.

Try to imagine how another actress would have demonstrated those feelings. I think most would have overplayed their hand - affecting 'embarrassed', adding a little barely-suppressed smile and maybe a demure-yet-inviting lowering of the eyes. It would have been a spectrum, moving from one emotion to the other like a checklist. And it would have been completely apparent what was going through her head, and the movie would have moved on to the next scene without anyone noticing anything unusual.

What Keira did, however, was to somehow display ALL those emotions on her face at the same time. I have no idea how she managed it - if it was conscious, if she was so 'into' her character that she just did it naturally and unconsciously, or if it was sheer luck (if the director chose the particular take where she was thinking about the pebble in her shoe or something). But rather than showing us a spectrum, rather than being overstated and making doubly sure we saw everything we were supposed to see, we saw it all together, subtly, right there on the same facial expression. This stern eyebrow is the bow to her socially ingrained response, that twitch of her lips shows her amusement, this tilt of her head demonstrates her embarrassment, that angle of her eyelashes shows her desire. It was all there. Unconsciously, I sighed in admiration, and heard Aphrodite murmur assent next to me, nodding, never taking her eyes off the screen. She saw it, too.

It was really just a quick moment near the beginning of the movie, a blip, and many of you might be thinking that it doesn't seem significant enough to merit a blog post. But I came out of the movie theater two hours after the fact still thinking about it. I've always thought Keira Knightley was beautiful and highly gifted, but this movie - hell, even just thirty seconds of this movie - moved her into a new class of talent in my mind. If Atonement is playing near any of you, I highly, highly, highly recommend you go and check it out.

Don't worry, I haven't forgotten my promise to post about Aphrodite's and my 'story'; it's just taking me a while to write it. Coming soon, I promise. Enjoy the rest of your weekend, everyone.